A Song to Listen To
by ApExPhOeNiX20
Summary: My first fic, Everyone! Please tell me what y'all think!


"A Song to Listen To"  
  
A short songfic by ApexPhoenix20  
  
Hope you like it. It's short, and I hope Gainax and Anno don't git pizzied off by this lizittle fizic I'm tizypin', ya hear? (As you've by now quite eloquently noticed, I'm, how one would put it, "Drizopping the Z" like a trizue thizug. Not doing it too well, though, as you see. ()  
  
Now, without further ado, I give you "A Song to Listen To".  
  
****************************************************  
  
"I didn't know that you played guitar, Shinji," Asuka mused as she gently opened the dusty guitar case. Shinji had his back turned, and had no idea that she was taking out his old six-string, the wood colored burnt umber, smooth to the touch. "Yeah, I did for a while…but I stopped a while back. Never played it since." He softly opened and closed his right hand, flexing the muscles to work out the crude rustiness he felt in them. A loud creaking sound reached his ears, and Shinji turned around. "Hey, Asuka, what do you think you're doing?" Shinji asked, a slight hint of irritation in his voice.  
  
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm opening it up and giving it to you, baka" she retorted, equally annoyed. Well, if that's what you really wanted, all you had to do was ask for it real nice—Shinji halted himself right there, his cheeks flushing a deep crimson.  
  
"Oh no, don't think for a second that I'm gonna sit down and play again, 'cause I won't do it!"  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because…um, because…'cuz I just won't! And I don't have to justify myself to you, Asuka!"  
  
"Aw, c'mon! Just a little bit?"  
  
"Absolutely not!"  
  
"For me, Shinji?" she said, pouting like a child and displaying her acting skills as best as she could with the addition of puppy-dog eyes and clasping her hands together. At that moment, Misato walked in, followed by, much to the surprise of both Shinji and Asuka, Rei. "What's all the yelling about, Asuka?" Misato queried as she studied the both of them.  
  
"It appears that Shinji and Asuka seem to be having a quarrel about that guitar."  
  
"Well, gee, Rei, how'd you guess that?" Asuka spat out at her, throwing a glare in her direction. Misato quickly intervened before anything got too out of hand. "Calm down, Asuka, you know she's just making an observation." Rei took a seat on the couch, getting comfortable. Misato did the same, and after a moment of fuming well spent, Asuka took a seat on the comfortable leather recliner. Shinji sighed.  
  
"Asuka's trying to get me to play the guitar, and I--"  
  
"Oh, I positively LIVE for good guitar player!" Misato excitedly exclaimed. "Play us a song, PLEASE, Shinji?!?"  
  
" Oh, uh, er, I'm not sure that Rei would like to hear any of the songs I play, really--"  
  
"I have no such objections as to hearing you play, Shinji," Rei said as she looked up at him quizzically. He lowered his head in defeat. There was no he was going to get out of this one, so he figured that he might as well do it to please them. Besides, he thought to himself as he was given his guitar by Asuka and tuned it, he did always wish he had an audience to hear him sing and play. Shinji thought he was getting kinda good at it, too.  
  
He pulled up a stool from the kitchen and sat down in front of the others. He then spoke.  
  
"This song that I'm gonna play for you is from the group Stone Temple Pilots, otherwise known as STP. It's one of my favorite songs, and I hope that I don't mess this up royally. The song is called…'Plush'."  
  
Then he began to play and sing.  
  
"And I feel that time's a wasted go  
  
So where ya goin' till tomorrow  
  
And I feel that these are lies to come  
  
Or would you even care?  
  
And I feel it  
  
And I feel it  
  
Where ya going till tomorrow ?  
  
Where ya going with the mask I found?  
  
And I feel, and I feel when the dogs begin to smell her,  
  
Will she smell alone?  
  
And I feel so much depends on the weather,  
  
So is it raining in your bedroom  
  
And I see  
  
That these are eyes of disarray,  
  
Or would you even care?  
  
When the dogs do find her  
  
Got time, time to wait for tomorrow  
  
To find her, to find her, to find her  
  
When the dogs do find her  
  
Got time, time to wait for tomorrow  
  
To find her, to find her, to fiiiind heeer…"  
  
(Shinji strums his guitar for a few chord, then sings)  
  
"Where ya going till tomorrow?  
  
Where ya going with the mask I found?  
  
And I feel, and I feel when the dogs begin to smell her,  
  
Will she smell alooooo-OOOOone?  
  
When the dogs do find her  
  
Got time, time to wait for tomorrow  
  
To find her, to find her, to find her  
  
When the dogs do find her  
  
Got time, time to wait for tomorroooow  
  
To find her, to find her, to FIIIND heeeer  
  
Ooh, oh  
  
Ooh, oh  
  
Hmm, hmmm.  
  
Ooh, oh  
  
Ooh, oh  
  
Hm, Hm, Hmmmmmmm."  
  
He let the final chords echo through the apartment, his eyes closed the whole time to savor the moments of being in tune with the guitar, his friends, for this one moment in time. The silence afterward hung thick around them, a gentle cloud descending slowly upon the group. Shinji opened his eyes, his blue pupils almost blinding as they shone in the light that was fixed above him in the ceiling, and Asuka, Rei, and Misato could almost swear beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was glowing. He wiped away a small strand of his soft dark brown hair from his forehead and then looked sheepishly at all of them.  
  
"Um…So, did any of you like it?" He asked, hoping that someone would answer, and in a positive way.  
  
Misato, with one finger on the side of her forehead and her right hand brushing back both a long strand of her velvet hair and a stray tear, smiled, sniffled, and said to him, "That was beautiful, Shinji…Beautiful." Rei didn't say a word, but instead just nodded, an oh-so-faint smile creeping across her delicate features, her soft, red pupils locked on Shinji.  
  
Asuka, her head down, gently rubbed the back of her neck, while tilting her head to the side took a moment to speak, cleared her throat softly, then spoke. "Um, Shinji…could you, um…could you sing another one…for me…please?" The question hung in the air for a while before he answered, grinning from ear to ear. "Sure." And they passed the afternoon away, listening to Shinji play. 


End file.
